


At Whose Gates I Ain't Been Delivered

by HarveyWallbanger



Category: Constantine (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-19
Updated: 2008-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but who knows what else it can breed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Whose Gates I Ain't Been Delivered

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Irony_Rocks as part of Yuletide, 2008. I thought of editing it, but have decided to leave it intact, as I wrote it nearly six years ago, because the people who read it at the time seemed to like it, and because it's fun to see how I wrote back then. The title comes from the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds song, Hard On For Love. I am not associated with the movie, Constantine, and this school is not associated with the movie, Constantine. Thank you, and good night.

`Seeing someone'- it's kind of a weird phrase. It's so seemingly casual- you see a lot of people everyday; it's your only interaction with most of them- but, somehow, it's different in this context. It implies so much more. That it's a process: the unfolding of your own sense of sight; the way that it changes the person you see, and the way it changes you and your perception.

John's been seeing her a lot, lately. Angela. It's like the forces of darkness have been throwing a temper tantrum- or a party. The cases are weirder and weirder- even the ones she works on, in her world, which is usually much more safe and orderly than his. People standing in line for a movie suddenly start dancing- uncoordinated, flailing movements- and foaming at the mouth. Anyone who happens to pass by and see them is drawn into the dancing. The mass extends for a block, and paralyzes traffic for miles. A man holding up a liquor store begins speaking medieval Latin and doesn't blink when he's shot twice in the chest. Blood pours from every sink in an apartment building. Which is really more of an issue for the Department of Water and Sanitation to handle, but the occupants call the cops, anyway, and it's Angela who's sent. John gets his information more efficiently than the cops, so he's already there, at all of the scenes- like he was meant to be waiting for her. So, he sees her a lot, now.

From outside of the police area- taped off, and minded by the same frowning officer every time- and then, once he's admitted to the cops' presence, from off to the side, he sees her. He sees her composing strategies with her colleagues. He sees her adjusting the velcro straps of her bullet-proof vest and checking her gun. He sees her on bended knee, reassuring a lost child. He sees her stooped over evidence, and can practically also see the thoughts in her head connecting and begetting more thoughts, like the gears of a fine clock spinning and triggering one another. And he's seen all of these things a hundred times before, but each time, every one of her actions seems newly-minted. A perfect moment, created just for him.

*

"I don't get it."

"What's there to get? It's fairly simple."

*

And then she'll turn, to speak to him. John, what do you think? John, have you seen anything like this before? John, this reminds me of- John, isn't this like- John, I have a feeling- John, I need to look through some of your books- 

Shaking him from his- not his reverie. His invisibility. When he's looking at her, watching her, it's like he doesn't exist. Like she blocks him out. And he's happy about that. To be rendered transparent by her light. By the light of her goodness and strength-

Is he really thinking this? This isn't him. He doesn't feel this way. He doesn't think this way about people. People are just people- each one full of the same boring sins and largely ineffectual goodness as the next; running in circles for eighty years. No one of them is any better than any of the others. And John includes himself in this. But-

"John? I said, I think I need to look through some of your books. If you don't want me to get them dirty, or something," one side of her mouth turns up, "just give me some titles, and I'll go to the library."

"No. It's no problem."

"Okay... John, are you feeling all right?"

"Sure. Another day full of weird shit- how else would I feel?"

*

"Forgive the turn of phrase, but it seems like you're taking an awful lot on faith, here. I know you like to think that you know him like the back of your hand, but he may surprise you."

"True- but in certain respects," a smile, "he's more predictable than you'll ever know."

*

"These are the ones that I think will help you." John sets down a stack of books on the table. "These," he pushes aside another stack, "aren't in English, but I'll translate what I think might be relevant."

"Thanks." She says the word like only she can say it; the `a' sound flattened and softened until it almost sounds like that of `e'. Her eyelids come down for a moment; her eyelashes are like sable.

*

"This isn't my style. I don't care for mind-games."

"Probably because you're so easily out-matched."

*

"Angela," he says, but he doesn't know what comes next, so the word just flares and dies on the air, like a dragon's belch.

"John." With her laughing eyes, and her soft voice.

He shakes his head. "Nothing."

*

"Well, that was uncalled for."

"Oh- did I hurt your pride? Such a sensitive issue for you; I forgot. Must sting; especially, these days. You being somewhat less effective at your job. In your current state. I mean, who'd want to buy what you're selling, now?"

*

He even sees her away from work. Mainly to discuss work, but it's no less exhilarating. At each new place they go, she changes. Under the great, low-hanging light fixtures of a diner, she's a Renaissance saint; in the shadows of a bar, she's a pagan goddess.

She tells him things about herself. A lot of the things he already knows, because after their initial meetings, it's not like they have many secrets from each other. Because he already knows the big things, knows her down to the very pith of her existence, he thought that he might get bored, hearing these little stories about her jumping horses competitively until she was sixteen; Isabel going to Rome during a brief sunny period in her late adolescence and Angela joining her; their mother having been a chemist and their father, a psychologist. But he isn't bored, at all. Every thing she tells him about herself changes her even more: it takes her away from his last thoughts, his last image of her. It makes it impossible for her to be an image, at all. So that she's no longer a saint or a goddess or a psychic or a cop, but a person, with all that implies, sitting in front of him. Her hand inches from his.

"But that's enough about me. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your childhood. Anything you want."

He looks at the table. "I just remembered; I have something to do. I'll see you when I see you."

*

"But that's enough about you. They say that familiarity breeds contempt. I don't believe that for a second."

*

It's an on-going investigation. There are occult overtones. John is with her almost every day. People make jokes; references to every science fiction program that has aired within the past twenty years. John has never been happier to not own a television.

"People say I'm spooky," Angela says, and smiles, "Do you think I'm spooky?"

"What?"

"The X-Files. Which you never watched, I bet."

"Not so much fun watching it when you're living it."

"I don't know- I used to like to watch N.Y.P.D. Blue."

Irritatingly, John finds himself unable to think of anything to say to that, so he looks straight ahead, and they keep walking, toward the latest crime scene.

*

"You learn to love the things that you experience everyday."

*

"Angela."

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering." The sentence ends there.

Angela raises her eyebrows. "About something in particular, or in general; about the mysteries of the universe?"

"About something in particular," he replies, with a smirk that's meant to save him from complete and total awkwardness; to make it look like he's playing a game with her.

"Okay."

"Would you like to go to dinner with me?"

"Well, yeah. I usually do. But you don't usually ask. Oh," she laughs, and leans in like they're girlfriends sharing a secret, "Would this be a date?" Her eyebrows are still raised, and she looks like it's all she can do to keep from falling on the floor in hysterics.

"Yes, actually," he says quietly.

Her eyebrows return to their normal positions, as the expression is temporarily wiped from her face. "Oh."

"Look, it's all right. You don't have to-"

"No. I'd like to."

This next expression of hers, this strange and tender expression, it's the first time he's ever seen it. Unlike with all the others, which only seem new to him each time he sees them, in this case, it's the literal truth. Now, he feels like he's really seeing Angela, for the first time. And that, somehow, this strange newness has gotten into him, so it's a different John Constantine looking at her. So that she might be seeing him for the first time, too.

*

"Either way, it works out for me," Lucifer says.

"When doesn't it?" Balthazar replies.

"The good thing is that I hardly have to do anything at all, here. It's entirely up to John which road he takes; it's a classic case of `damned if you do, damned if you don't'. Say she rejects him. He goes back to exactly where he was: miserable; alone; wallowing in guilt and self-loathing. His natural habitat. But say it works out between them. Well, that's when I really have him."

"Now, see, that's what I don't get. Isn't love supposed to bring out the best in them?"

Lucifer snorts. "You've been reading too many greeting cards. Even the holiest are capable of doing the most fucked-up things because of love. The most unexpected things, too. That's what's great about love: it inspires spontaneity and variety. A guy like John, on his own- the story practically tells itself. I get what I want, but there's no interest; no suspense. Now, a guy like John, in love," Lucifer smiles, showing his teeth, "there's a guy with a thousand and one roads leading him straight to hell."


End file.
